Yearly Archives: 2013

Last year, after a decade of speculation, failed starts and mountains of expectation, Peter Jackson released The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the first in a trilogy of films adapting J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic fantasy novel, The Hobbit, for the big screen. Following in the footsteps of its bigger brother, Jackson’s adaptation of Lord of the Rings, a modern film classic in its own right, The Hobbit was almost destined to disappoint. With his first trilogy, Jackson captured lightning in a bottle. He took the movie industry by storm, and revitalized mainstream excitement for fantasy to a level not seen since the ’80s. He did so, somehow, by executing an enormous passion project that seemed almost impossible under the circumstances: no major stars, a production and special effects company that no one had heard of, a story deemed unfilmable by many fans, and a film industry that had not seen anything of its scale since Lucas’ Star Wars (which, in itself, faced many challenges and doubters before it found success.)

When Jackson first approached New Line Cinema, he pitched them on an adaptation of The Hobbit, with a two-film adaptation of Lord of the Rings to follow. As these things go, film rights to The Hobbit were split between two companies (which would again later impede production of The Hobbit trilogy we know today), while Lord of the Rings was entirely under the umbrella of New Line Cinema’s owner, Saul Zaentz. Jackson, a relative unknown in the world of big budget Hollywood films, was given the reigns to one of the most revered entertainment properties in the world. Read More »

Brian McClellan turned a lot of heads earlier this year with the release of Promise of Blood, the first book in The Powder Mage Trilogy, a flintlock fantasy that SciFi Now called, “a historically influenced fantastical romp filled with machismo, intrigue and magic.” Machismo aside, (that’s a virtue in a novel?) McClellan’s debut has been getting a lot of attention during year end discussions about 2013’s most exciting new authors, and anticipation for the second volume in the series, The Crimson Campaign is high. Unfortunately, McClellan has announced that it will not be hitting its previously announced release date. The novel “has been pushed back from February 18th, 2014 to May 6th, 2014; a delay of about two and a half months,” says McClellan.

On his blog, McClellan further explains the delay (which, in a nice twist of fate, is not due to any difficulties in finishing the novel, it’s simple publishing strategy):

[Orbit] has decided that a May release would be so much better in order to put The Crimson Campaign into has many hands as possible. I completely trust their decision in this matter. They’ve done such an awesome job with my books so far, I don’t think they’re going to let me down now. You may be grumbling that it sounds like a marketing decision and wondering why this matters to you. It is, and it does: the better The Crimson Campaign (and subsequent books) does in the bookstores, the better I will do as an author, which will allow me to focus on writing and not, say, go find a full time job doing something else. This means that you’ll continue getting a Powder Mage book every year for the next four years after this one, rather than me having to spread out the release dates because I don’t have as much time to write.

This also effects the release of the Promise of Blood trade paperback. Orbit will push that release back to April 8th in the US. The UK release will stay the same (January 18th).

The delay is unfortunate, but given its prior release date placed it just two weeks before the release of Words of Radiance, the second volume of Brandon Sanderson’s The Stormlight Archives (and likely to big the biggest fantasy release of 2014), and McClellan’s own growing popularity, it’s understandable that Orbit wanted to reposition the release to move it out from under the shadow of a behemoth.

The Thorn of Emberlain “ought to be out in the fall of 2014,” said Lynch in an interview with Fantastical Imaginations. While some guarded skepticism is natural, Adam Whitehead of The Wertzone said, “Scott’s publishers are themselves confident that this date can be met: Scott began work on The Thorn of Emberlain some time before the final edits on Republic [of Thieves] were done, and the novel is already in an advanced stage of writing.”

Lynch also revealed some early details about what fans can expect of Locke and Jean’s misadventures in Emberlain:

The Thorn of Emberlain, the fourth book in the Gentleman Bastard sequence, picks up about half a year after The Republic of Thieves and finds Locke Lamora and Jean Tannen trying to get back on their feet with a major con. They’re trying to sell the services of a non-existent mercenary company to the besieged city-state of Emberlain, hoping to escape with the hiring fees before the chaos of the Vadran civil war overruns Emberlain. Naturally, things don’t go according to plan…

Given my love for Lynch’s most recent novel, The Republic of Thieves (REVIEW), The Thorn of Emberlain has immediately vaulted to the top of my most anticipated novels for 2014.

Every once in a while, an artist nails the artwork from the book they are covering. Marc Simonetti does it on an alarmingly regular basis.

This artwork, created by Simonetti for the Brazilian edition of Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn: The Final Empire, is gorgeous, and the most accurate to imagery that I had in my mind’s eye when reading Sanderson’s trilogy. That Mistcloak! Those Inquisitors! Kelsier’s grin!

Known among fantasy fans for his work on foreign-language versions of many of fantasy’s biggest series, like Rothfuss’ The Kingkiller Chronicles or Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, it’s about time that Simonetti makes the leap to working with some of the big North American and British publisher on the first run major fantasy releases from those authors. The guy’s good enough that his art should be on bookstore shelves everywhere.

Remember back in your younger days when the hours would fly by as you dug through your bin of LEGO, bounded only by the limits of your imagination? Grown now, Alice Finch and David Frank have taken that concept to another level with their enormous recreation of Rivendell, The Last Homely House west of the Mountains, from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.

“This, of course, isn’t Finch or Frank’s first LEGO project,” explains Stew Shearer of The Escapist. “Both, in the past, took part in a collaborative project based on Hobbiton, another Tolkien location. Finch has also done a recreation of Hogwarts Castle, while Frank has built several complex castles. The two chose to build Rivendell in part because they believed it to “the ultimate challenge.”

This imagining, which takes visual cues from Peter Jackson’s film adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien’s novels, measures in at 10′ by 5′ and contains over 200,000 pieces of LEGO. Certainly puts my old childhood creations to shame. But, damnit, those had heart! This Rivendell just has… immense amounts of creative vision, talent and hardwork.